"Not like a light bulb. Like garlic, you know? Something that grows underground."

/

"Well, maybe not."

/

"Yes, I'm fine."

/

"Sure. Hang on a minute, I'll buzz you in."

click.

*

"You should put flypaper up, Yohji-kun. They're everywhere." Padding around the flat in sports socks, fussing. He can't seem to keep from doing this - every time he goes round to Yohji's flat he's always moving about, picking things up and ordering them. Yohji sprawled on the bed half-watches him, head flopped upside down off the edge, eyes lazy.

"Hey, Omi, you'll put the kettle on?"

//pad pad//, the sound of feet altering slightly as he goes into the lino-floored kitchenette even before answering, "Sure."

Deliciously lazy. Pale, thin autumn daylight brushes through Yohji's eyelashes and he wants to croon like a soft, feathery animal. He yawns instead, putting his hands behind his head and cracking his shoulder blades. Then he blinks vaguely at the ceiling.

"It's the time of year," he says. "There's no point in trying to stop them."

"Huh?" Omi has a spoon in his mouth. It shows when he talks - as if he's got his mouth full, but not quite the same qualitatively.

"The flies, I mean."

There is a shrug, almost audible. "You know nearly everything edible in your fridge was bought by me?"

"They just buzz around for a few days, then they die," persists Yohji. "It's what they do." Sleepiness is making him pettily stubborn, recalcitrant. From this far up he can't see the yellowing trees or the damp leaves on the pavement unless he goes to the balcony; just a watery, neutral sliver of sky.

"Still," and he balances two mugs with steam curling from them and toes the door shut behind him at the same time, perfect gawky boyish asymmetry - "flypaper would be tidier."

*

/Where was I?/

/Oh. Of course./

Fly-specked white. Vague daylight bleaches the apartment. The noise of the street outside filters through tinny and distant like music through the back of headphones.

Shifting onto his elbows, Yohji discovers a note left under his clock.

Left groceries. And you can get round to paying me back sometime as well, you still owe me from last week. Me and Ken are going for pizza (the place opposite the cinema). Come meet us if you wake up in time, we'll be there a while.

Yohji grins a bit. Probably even worth getting up for.

*

"This scar..." He trails his fingers up the inside of Yohji's elbow, measuring.

"Huh?" Yohji shifts to look. "Oh. That's old." As in, old old. He'd broken his arm pretty badly when he was a kid, had to have it pinned. Riding a bicycle. No, wait, was it when they were messing around in the old quarry? He can't actually remember, how ridiculous.

"I didn't notice it before," says Omi quietly.

There is silence for a while, neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

"You know, Yohji..."

"...?"

"When I was a kid - like, in elementary school, I mean - there was this factory in my area, and it blew up. Got blown up. I don't know, no-one ever really said. I was just, I dunno. Thinking. You have to wonder, with what we do..."

He shakes his head a little.

"Well, maybe not. I was barely even aware of it at the time. I guess that was what I was getting at."

*

He's had a little too much to drink, Omi that is; funny that it didn't seem obvious until now. He's messy, his kiss almost sliding off the side of Yohji's mouth, his breathing very close and awkward. Yohji tries to extricate himself without upsetting Omi. Omi murmurs strings of words as he pulls away, barely audible - I'm sorry shit I'm so sorry please Yohji I thought well might as well be you as anyone else for a first time you know Yohji please I thought -- I thought --

"Shit." Omi stands up very hurriedly. He leaves, scrabbling around just a bit with the bolts in the dark.

Yohji puts his hand over his eyes.

*

The next day, Omi very determinedly acts as if nothing has happened.

*

Omi is making tea in the kitchenette. He's not visible, but his feet make a singular sound on the lino. That blunt noise is him trying to close the cupboard door that doesn't close properly. You should get that fixed someday. Yawn, yawn so long you run out of breath, stretch out so far your muscles feel empty like old elastic. It's a shame to waste a good yawn.

He's talking to you. " - not so many flies today, I guess you were right, it really was just the season." It was. They are piled up dead in the windowsills now like just so many mean little black sweet wrappers.

Room temperature is a pleasant neutral - the cold comes from not moving around, you know that, but at this moment getting out of bed seems like a bad idea.

" - out, so I bought you some rice and biscuits and stuff too - "

It's not actually raining. That sound - you assumed it was rain again, but there's nothing coming down outside - someone must have left the TV on upstairs. Or a radio, maybe.

Omi comes through with two mugs of tea in one hand, biscuits in the other, closing the door with his foot in the way in. He balances perfectly.

He pokes Yohji with the biscuits until Yohji sits up and makes room for him.

"Lazy Yotan. I swear, if I didn't come over the whole time, I don't think you'd ever bother to wake up."

/

/

I --

He's still chattering on as if he has no idea what he's just said. Always, when he does this, and you wonder how it is he can push through sharp, sharp like that, and still never really believe that you are anything less than perfect.